Isn’t it About Time We All Reconnect?

(Next week I will be at the Real Estate & Entrepreneurship Conference for Physicians running from September 26-28, in Dallas, Texas. If you’ve been thinking about attending, stop putting it off and click on the link above and order the virtual option before it’s too late.)

During the last few years of my career in medicine I noticed a loss of connection with my fellow physicians. Early in my career we had such things as a medical society that met monthly for dinner and a speaker, as well as at Christmas for a party which included our spouses. Events like this help us to get to know each other better. More recently there has been a trend away from doing things that bring us together. This is not a good trend.

Attendance at the county medical society meetings began falling until attendance was so low we stopped having meetings. Then later, with no new members joining, the medical society disbanded.

As our work lives got busier every year from additional requirements, something had to be eliminated from our schedules. One of the things we gave up was socializing with our peers. 

The physician’s lounge was removed at our hospital. This was a place I would take a break to eat lunch in peace and have a conversation with one of my fellow physicians. It was a nice combo to socialize while eating.

This trend of becoming too busy to socialize has also extended to our personal life as we do less and less with our families.

If you are missing social interactions with your family and peers like I was, then the following ideas may help get you reconnected.

Don’t bring “things to do” to meetings

Committee meetings are a built-in chance to socialize, but we frequently do not take advantage of this time together. Many of us use these opportunities to do other things like knitting or checking email. 

When we walk into the meeting room, we sit down and use whatever we brought to the meeting to occupy our time before the meeting starts. This pre-meeting moment is prime time to socialize. When you come into the room, sit next to a colleague and say hello and begin a conversation. Leave your phone in your pocket and do not look at it until the meeting is over.

It is very sad to walk into a room and see five physicians all with their head down and thumbs busy with their phones. No one is taking advantage of this opportunity to get to know their fellow physicians.

Sometimes there is someone who will bring their current project to work on during the meeting. It is very annoying to be sitting next to a physician who is knitting during a meeting. If you come to a meeting, you should give it your full attention and participate. Knitting while pretending to be present is not good and can be a distraction to others. If you don’t plan on participating fully, stay home and knit. 

Imagine what a patient would think if their physician was knitting while listening to their list of problems during their short appointment. The patient would know darn well they do not have your full attention. Likewise, everyone in the committee feels the same way. 

When we do get the chance to socialize with each other, take advantage of it and put away all distractions.

Make mealtime a time to connect 

Physicians are constantly telling me their family is their priority. They also complain that they don’t get enough time with their family. They might have a goal of reaching financial independence so they don’t have to work, which will allow them to spend quality time with their family. But when they do sit down at the dinner table or in a restaurant with their family, everyone is looking at their phone. They might as well be in separate rooms. 

Take advantage of all the time you do get to be with your family. Let them know you are interested in engaging with them. The dinner table should be a no phone zone.

Some people who choose to have a conversation at the dinner table put their phone on the table in front of them while they eat. This announces that they are not interested in being completely present at the meal. They will talk to those in their company until something better pops up on their phone. When their phone vibrates, they look at it and say, “I’m not going to get that.” Oh, how magnanimous of them. They checked to see if the call was more or less important than talking to those at the table and this time those at the table won.

While you are at it, make mealtimes with your family a priority. I often hear that there are “too many things going on in our life and we can’t all sit down at the table at the same time.” You could all eat together if it was made a priority. The other things would need to wait. Or you could have scheduled the other things around the mealtime if the family was actually your priority. 

Don’t use texting for conversations

Conversations with others have gone by the wayside since the invention of texting. Texting is a good and very convenient way to convey a quick message. “I’ll be home in an hour.” “Mrs. Smith’s potassium level is normal.”

Texts, however, are a terrible place to hold a conversation. If you go back and forth with a text more than a couple of times, then pick up the phone and have a conversation with the person. You will save time and avoid the constant interruption of the next text message. If you know you need a conversation, don’t start it with a text. Unless that text says “call me when you have a moment.”

I recently got a text that turned into a text conversation. It started right before I left the house to go to a dinner meeting. I silenced my phone and went to the meeting. Unbeknownst to me the other person kept texting. I was no longer answering his texts, as I was in a restaurant with others and giving my attention to them. When I got home, I read the texts. The words got angrier with each text, since I wasn’t answering. He expected me to drop what I was doing and answer each of his texts. When I returned home, I sent him a text saying that I had been out to dinner and was now home, let’s discuss this on the phone tomorrow.

Use texts for brief messages and use a phone call for a conversation. It is important to have more conversations so we can connect with each other.

Spend money on things to do with others

Rather than buying things to give to others, use your money to buy experiences that involve others. Do things with other people; family members, spouses, friends, and colleagues. Experiences we have with other people go a long way towards making us more connected and will lead to more happiness and joy.

It could be as lavish as taking the extended family on a vacation to as simple as taking a friend out for breakfast. I did that this morning, and my friend commented that a few years ago neither one of us was having breakfast with friends. 

Get out and do things with others. Life is a whole lot more than just what you do for a living. As physicians, we can get sucked into working all the time. We must remember, there is more work than we can do if we let it get away from us, so make time to do things with others. 

There are so many ways we can bring people back into our lives if we just become open to it. Let’s not let the burden of our workload and the distraction of social media keep us from having good relationships with our family, friends and colleagues. We can do better.